


Dean follows his heart.

by outpastthemoat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Magical Realism, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-06
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-25 04:30:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6180229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/outpastthemoat/pseuds/outpastthemoat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been so long since he looked to where his heart ought to be.  It has been so long since he looked to his heart for guidance.  He has forgotten to stop and ask of his heart, Now what? What do I want? What do I love?  Now he hears his heart somewhere off in the distance, and Dean follows his heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dean follows his heart.

Dean follows his heart.

He knows he still has one, even after everything’s he done, even after all the blood he has spilled and darkness he has seen; he hears it beating still, but distant, and he realizes then that is has been a very long time since he felt that heart of his pumping blood through this body, that it has been years since he felt his own heart beating loud and clear beneath his own ribs.  

It has been so long since he looked to where his heart ought to be.  It has been so long since he looked to his heart for guidance.  He has forgotten to stop and ask of his heart, Now what? What do I want? What do I love?  Now he hears his heart somewhere off in the distance, and Dean follows his heart.

Dean follows his heart.  He puts on his boots and throws his jacket over his shoulder and guns the engine and goes, aims the Impala down the interstate., doesn’t stop to leave a note or pack a bag, doesn’t stop for lunch or dinner, doesn’t stop at a motel once the sun goes down that night, he just goes.  He stops for gas, his fingers drumming on the hood of the Impala, hearing the steady beat of the pump as his tank fills up with gasoline, while somewhere out there his heart is waiting for him to find it, to go back to where it is that he left it all those years ago and recover what he has been missing for so long.

Dean follows his heart.  He loses the beat and has to stop sometimes, has to pull over on the side of the road because he cannot hear the beat of his heart, has to cut the engine and let his head fall into his hands, has to sit there while the engine cools, listening for that faint beat that gets drowned out sometimes by the hum of the road, echoing in Dean’s ears.  Dean follows his heart and he has no map to follow, to signal to track, no trail to follow.

Dean follows his heart like a king chasing a star, across the Kansas prairie, beyond the brown dirt and endless sky, Dean follows his heart; over a mountain range, across thirteen miles of bridges, Dean follows his heart as the scenery changes, as the grass goes from green to grey to brown, as it turns into warm caramel sand.  Dean follows his heart down a road with the ocean breaking on one side and the sharp curve of a mountain on the other.

Dean follows his heart through the close, narrow streets of a city, past stores and buildings and banks, past shelters and apartments and townhomes, Dean is following his heart and it is louder now, he can hear it echoing in his ears, like listening to the sound of the ocean inside a seashell; he hears it pulsing under his skin, he is so close that when he rolls his window down, he can feel the way that the blood in his body is rushing to the surface, making his cheeks go red from the sun and the wind, making his feet tap and his fingers drum to the music on the radio with a wild, sudden vitality.  

He is so close and he can feel it, he is so close that he has to stop the car and dance on the shoulder of the road, holding his arms up to the sky, letting himself sway in circles,  laughing like a lunatic, laughing like a poet, laughing like a lover.

Dean follows his heart and it tells him to stop for ice cream, so he does.  It whispers in his hear, his poor long-forgotten heart; it says things like You are wonderful, you are incredible, stop for a milkshake, and his heart is somewhere out there, strong and filled with joy.  His heart calls out to him, it beats close by his ear at nights when he sleeps curled in the Impala’s backseat, it calls to him to sleep like a lullaby, and it lets him sleep safe and sound and long until he wakes up and wipes the grit from his eyes, and the dark shadows underneath his eyes wipe away, too.

His heart beckons him on adventure.  It waves him down side streets and through neighborhoods, just to say, Look at this wide wonderful world, look at the people in it.  Look at the lovers sitting in that front porch swing, look at the children in the park.  His heart loves them all, everyone he looks at, and Dean loves them so much he could die for them all.  He could die smiling, with laughter still echoing in the corners of his eyes and mouth.

Dean is following his heart.

His heart calls him to a small park near the water, and that is where he stop the car and parks it next to an old gold Lincoln Continental. He puts a quarter in the parking meter and buys fifteen minutes of time.  He doesn’t need long, he knows.  He is so close.  His heart is here, somewhere nearby, he can feel it, oh, oh, he can feel it.

His heart is here waiting.  It’s been waiting right here for so long.  So Dean sits down on a bench by the ocean and takes Castiel’s hand.

You, Dean is saying and laughing and crying all at once, You have had my heart all this time, and I never knew.  But here you are, and Castiel is smiling, just a little, the way he does when he is oh-so-pleased that his almost-but-not-quite-there soul is shining through the cracks in his grace.  

Me, Castiel is saying and laughing and crying, all at once, It has been with me all this time, even when I have been so lost and alone and afraid?  All this time, your heart has been with me? 

Do you need it back? Castiel is asking, and No, no, Dean is telling him.  It’s yours to keep.

Then you can have mine, Castiel says, and Dean can feel it, Castiel’s aching, loving heart, beating furiously in the space between them, so he reaches out and takes it between his palms.  

This is how you hold a heart: with great care, with your palms wrapped around it to keep it warm, to keep the light from going out.  This is how you hold the heart of the one you love. 

Castiel’s heart is a little tired and not well cared for, Dean can tell, and Dean loves this well-worn heart with everything he has.

I’ve never even bought you dinner, Castiel says, so Dean says, I saw a diner two blocks away, it’s a date.

Okay, Castiel says, and stands up to go, and now that Dean has found his heart, he isn’t about to let it go again, so Dean stands up too and follows Castiel to where their cars are parked side by side, with the meter almost running out of minutes, and Castiel is climbing into the Continental and pulling out into the lane ahead ahead of him so fast, and Dean is sliding into the Impala the way he has so many times before, and for a moment he worries that he’ll lose Castiel somewhere along the way.  

But then the Continental pulls over on the side of the road, waiting patiently for him to catch up, so Dean follows his heart.


End file.
